Decision-making requires selecting between choices. The choice between action and inaction is not always simple. The following theorists have developed logic-based step-by-step models to use when making difficult choices. Ethics instructors often use these models as teaching tools. Some of the tools are quick and simple to apply. Others take a little more time.

An Ethics Check

Is it legal?

Is it balanced? (Is the decision fair, or will it heavily favor one party over another in the short or long term?)

The Stakeholder model asks the decision maker to consider everyone who might be impacted by the act being contemplated. Stakeholders are those who have an interest in the ramifications of a decision. The model considers not only those individuals or groups directly benefiting or suffering from the decision, but also those indirectly affected including family, friends and professional associates. Used as an ethics teaching tool, the Stakeholder exercise asks the participant to:

In an article published in the Harvard Business Review, Dr. Laura Nash suggests twelve questions that managers should ask when making business decisions. Many of these questions translate easily to those decisions required of law enforcement officers.

Have you defined the problem accurately?

How would you define the problem if you stood on the other side of the fence?

How did this situation occur in the first place?

To whom and to what do you give your loyalty as a person and as a member of the corporation

What is your intention in making this decision?

How does this intention compare with the probable results?

Whom could your decision or action injure?

Can you discuss the problem with the affected parties before you make your decision?

Are you confident that your position will be a valid over a long period of time as it seems now?

Could you disclose, without qualm, your decision or action to your boss, your CEO, the board of directors, your family, society as awhole?

What is the symbolic potential of your action if understood? If misunderstood?

In Making Decisions, (1998), Robert Heller describes the following process for making decisions:

Identify issues: What exactly has to be decided?

Undertake analysis: What are the alternatives?

Evaluate options: What are the pros and cons?

Identify choices: Which alternative is best?

Implement plans: What action needs to be taken?

Source: Heller, R. (1998). Making Decisions. New York: DK.

The Constitution as an Ethics Training Tool

Another approach to decision making is described by Bradley S. Chilton in "Constitutional Conscience: Criminal Justice and Public Interest Ethics." (1998) Chilton says,

...public servants must discover the Constitution as a document and understand its official interpretations by the U.S. Supreme Court if they are to know the basic ethics, morals, and values that should guide their exercise of discretion in decision making, policy making, and behavior."

According to Chilton, a decision made in the public interest should consider the impact of the decision on all affected persons. He sees the Constitution as the authoritative statement of the moral aspirations of the citizenry. Chilton says that ethics teaching should be grounded in the Constitution, U.S. Supreme Court cases, and other authoritative sources including laws and amendments. An excellent resource for information about the U.S. Constitution and it evolutionary foundations can be found at The Constitution Society web site: http://www.constitution.org/